The Achor Project

Do you have any idea how many well situated, theologically orthodox
Grace Baptist
churches fail and chapels shut in the UK each year?

Don't stop reading or feel particularly guilty if you don't. Nobody else seems to either...
and that's just the start of the problem. We just don't know how bad things may
already have become.

The scale of the problem simply increases if you look at those churches with dwindling
and often elderly congregations that seem likely to close within the next decade. One
Association has gathered figures that suggest steep decline towards the point of
non-viability is already underway in the bulk of their congregations....
humanly speaking, of course.

What's going on?

Probably very few of us have a problem with Liberal chapels closing. Perhaps a chapel
needs to shut when the church it houses releases its grip on the Word of God. But what
about the sorry sight of a Grace Baptist chapel with the For Sale signs up? How do you
feel about that? Doesn't it break your heart to see an empty chapel in some part of some
town where a viable Gospel witness is needed?

Yes, the cause of God has always suffered church collapses due to demographic changes,
scandals and the like. These closures don't really add up to a trend. We are now dealing
with a definite trend. So what's happening now, what's changed and what might the Lord
be doing in closing the doors of all these places of worship?

It's a very big question, but here's my stab at it. We seem to have passed through the
era of massive closures within the Liberal churches into a time characterised by the
closure of theologically orthodox churches, whose people have not let go of the Word,
but let go of the people around them. The point being missed is this: the Gospel has
NOT been given to us for us to KEEP it! Neither has it been given to us
so that we can complicate it, nor make it appear culturally alien, putting the
life-giving bread beyond the ordinary people's reach. Many of the churches that are
closing, but no, not all, seem to be doing one of those two things. We can't expect
the Lord to be pleased.

What's to be done?

Well, obviously, there is a great need for repentance. If we have made glorifying God in
the effective communication of the Gospel anything other than our highest goal in life,
we've done wrong. But churches that have already shut are not there any more and will
not draw crowds to a day of repentance! They need to be started afresh.

A new initiative

There are a few cases around the country where in recent years something effective has
been done to restart collapsed churches. We thank God for that, but the approach has
been piece meal, and a piece meal approach doesn't go nearly far enough to meet the
scale of the challenge our churches now face. For the most part, the task doesn't benefit
from settled Pastor types tackling it either. There is a variety of gifts and callings, and it
needs to be recognised that just putting a Pastor there is not the Evangelical equivalent
of waving a wand. This won't make it automatically come right!

The Achor Project has been established by a small group of pioneering pastors who
are actually engaged in a replanting ministry on a day to day basis. This has been done
NOT to duplicate the work being done by Associations through Home Missions committees,
nor that done by the various Trust Corporations, but to tackle the things no-one else is
doing in an attempt to promote and facilitate the re-starting of collapsed churches in
viable locations.

Areas of need

The areas of need identified where no-one else seems to be at work are those of

Networking folk supportive of or already engaged in this pattern of ministry;

Conducting pure and applied research into the problem;

Training a new generation not simply of Pastors but of pioneers and;

Running re-planting projects where no other agency is willing or able to do so.

2. Research

The first area of need, networking to create fellowship, is being met through the Achor
Project with two publications already launched. One is for pioneers involved in re-planting
collapsed churches and the other is made available to the Christian public to
highlight what is being done in various locations. All church secretaries listed in Grace
Directory have been sent a copy of the latter. If there isn't one on your church notice
board, ask to see it! .... and if you would like to join either of these operational or support
networks, please make contact.

The second area of need, research, is something we need your help with. The situation
needs to be adequately monitored if it is to be adequately addressed. Can you tell us
about a church that is being or that needs to be re-planted, or that looks like needing it
soon? There is no existing national network to facilitate such information gathering, so
any information you can supply us with for our database would be very welcome.

Above and beyond that we need to do some study on (for example) what constitutes a
viable church ripe for re-planting, what the leading characteristics of successful re-plants
are, and so on (this is what you might call pure research). Nobody seems to be
addressing these crucial questions! Of course, in the last analysis, the Lord alone knows,
and much prayer is needed to discern His will for a given situation, but surely there must
be general principles we can learn ... and if so, what are they?

We are also seeking to develop the capability to go into areas where churches have
closed to survey the locality, perhaps using teams of young Christians, to try to work
out whether something should be done there, and what shape any replanting project in
that place should take. This is the sort of applied research that can be of great
help in making the most of a re-planting opportunity from the very start.

The third area we need to develop (in fellowship with others who might get involved in
this) is the training of pioneers. We've spoken to many in our churches who ask
"But where are the men to do this work?" It might be relevant to ask "Who
is training them?" Too often, prospective pioneers are viewed as a threat and
squashed. Pioneers are by definition singular people! It's one thing to train a Pastor....
but pioneers are more like missionaries and require different gifts and personalities,
and a very different sort of training. In an age when our thinking about ministry is
"Pastor dominated", everyone seems to be training Pastors and no-one seems to be doing
much about training pioneers.

In twenty years, on current trends, we won't need many pastors because there won't be
THAT many churches around to pastor.... but we will be needing the pioneers to
spear-head the re-evangelisation of the UK.

Obviously, training should take place at different levels. We are starting with summer
evangelism teams for young people doing evangelism in pioneer situations. (The first one
is this summer - please write for details!) Year teams can be useful too and of significant
help to team members themselves both in forming Christian character and in discerning
God's plans for their future. Who could you encourage onto one of these? At yet another
level, those who have undertaken some systematic form of theological training might
benefit from an internship working alongside experienced pioneers. At the moment such
opportunities are terribly limited. We would love to be able to provide that resource to
the right sort of candidate....might you be such a person?

The fourth area concerns the running of projects to replant churches, already
being done in some areas by certain Associations and larger churches, forming teams
and providing support, help and encouragement in what can be extremely isolated
pioneering situations. This, like most of the things we've been looking at, would
involve the commitment of resources we do not yet possess, but that we would need to
look to the Lord to provide. However, if we make it a rule simply to gaze at our problems
and fail to act, we shall certainly have some serious explaining to do when we stand
before the Great White Throne on That Day!

This Achor Project has been born. It has been born out of the passionate conviction that
the God of Scripture has an inestimably gracious heart, and will not give up on His erring
children. In fact, throughout salvation history He has led them into the desert simply
because He longs to turn their Valleys of Achor into doors of hope. Check it out in
Joshua 7 and Hosea 2.... and please consider whether this is not something
that you ought to be involved with.

We are looking for two potential full time church planting/replanting
pioneers to be available to start training in the autumn. Could one of
them be you? If so, please send an enquiry and your CV to the address below.

You can make contact, get details of teams, publications or training, or even arrange a
visit to your church by one of our steering group by e-mailing on cwmdutexels@tiscali.co.uk, or by writing to or
telephoning: